HYDROCARBONS
Crude oil is a mixture of compounds called hydrocarbons. Many useful materials can be produced from crude oil. It can be separated into different fractions using fractional distillation, and some of these can be used as fuels. Unfortunately, there are environmental consequences when fossil fuels such as crude oil and its products are used.
Hydrocarbons and alkanes
Hydrocarbons
Most of the compounds in crude oil are hydrocarbons. This means that they only contain hydrogen and carbon atoms, joined together by chemical bonds. There are different types of hydrocarbon, but most of the ones in crude oil are alkanes.
Alkanes
The alkanes are a family of hydrocarbons that share the same general formula. This is:
CnH2n+2
The general formula means that the number of hydrogen atoms in an alkane is double the number of carbon atoms, plus two. For example, methane is CH4 and ethane is C2H6. Alkane molecules can be represented by displayed formulae in which each atom is shown as its symbol (C or H) and the chemical bonds between them by a straight line.
Structure of alkanes
|alkane |formula |chemical structure |ball-and-stick model |
|methane |CH4 |[pic] |[pic] |
|ethane |C2H6 |[pic] |[pic] |
|propane |C3H8 |[pic] |[pic] |
|butane |C4H10 |[pic] |[pic] |
Notice that the molecular models on the right show that the bonds are not really at 90ยบ.
Alkanes are saturated hydrocarbons. This means that their carbon atoms are joined to each other by single bonds. This makes them relatively unreactive, apart from their reaction with oxygen in the air, which we call burning...